Si riproduce qui, ad uso dei lettori anglofoni, un’intervista già apparsa in italiano qui il 19 novembre
Interview by UBALDO SCANAGATTA , 19 November 2007 (conducted together with Daniele Azzolini and Stefano Semeraro, director and vice-editor of the Italian tennis magazine Matchpoint; In English have been translated also some anecdotes of Cino Marchese)

Translation by

MARGHERITA POLACCI

Shanghai_“Silence, Genius at work!”. That banner, amongst tens of Swiss flags from Roger Federer’s fans, follows the world number 1 everywhere, to all tournaments, even here in Shanghai.
How do you feel when you see that banner, Roger, how does it feel to be considered a genius?
Well, I have a similar banner at home!

I like it. Maybe I’m a genius in tennis, but not in the ordinary things…but I always try to get better. When my tennis does work there is someone out there that maybe thinks I am a genius…but the funniest thing is that at the beginning my fans were extremely excited to see me playing. Now they’re much more well behaved, as if there really was a genius at work that shouldn’t be disturbed. Perhaps after many one-way matches people do not get that excited any more….but it’s great to have a fan group, they have their own website rogerfederer.com
Someone was talking about your decline….but your reaction was not at all bad!
It’s been a fantastic year, I’m super-happy. I won the AO without losing a set early in the year, and now, at the end of the season, with the exception of the loss to Gonzalez, I won all the matches in straight sets. People started to think…Federer is not playing well…but this year I beat Nadal on clay for the first time, I beat both Nadal and Djokovic, my closest rivals, more times than I lost to them. I didn’t win 10 events, but that’s not necessary to stay number 1.
In the middle of the year, Nadal being ahead in points must have caused you a lot of stress.
No, but even during the toughest moments I felt that if I could play well I would have controlled him from a distance…Guess I found the key to beat him now. Before he used to surprise me often, now that happens less and less. We got to know each other better and better after 14 matches
Yours is a clean rivalry…
Well, he has got a very different style as a tennis player, but Rafa is a really good guy. I’m happy when he plays well and this is reciprocated, I guess. He’s a big fighter. It’s been a great satisfaction for me to have beaten him 6-4, 6-1, but I think it must have been hard for him…it has happened to me too…tennis is a clean sport…we fight but we do respect each other a lot.
Well, clean sport…there is more than one person doubting it with this betting thing
Nobody has ever come to me. Some tennis players do not earn much and they may be tempted. But none of them has the right to do any harm to tennis.
Which was your worst moment in 2007?
Well, to call it worst is exaggerating. Tough, I’d say…The Paris final. A big disappointment, I couldn’t hide it. I cared too much for RG…this is the reason why I didn’t play Halle. I needed a break and wanted to be very well prepared for Wimbledon…the loss to Volandri in Rome has been another tough moment…not for the way I played and lost but for the difficult situation that there was between me and Tony Roche. I had to get ready for Paris and there was so little time and I was worried. Luckily Wimbledon was next…
Where everything went extremely well
Yes, that was the best moment, really special, a great match with Rafa, 5 sets as in Miami but the turning point of the season…all those champions that were watching me, Borg, Becker, Connors, McEnroe, real legends…and all of this after losing in Paris…
So Federer doesn’t need a new coach?
Why not? I don’t know yet, I’ll decide in the next 3 weeks. So far I haven’t wanted to think about it because it would have caused me too much tension…on a holiday everything is different…when you split from a coach or you get a new one you end up being flooded by a bunch of emails…
You’ll be 27 next year, are you afraid of getting bored?
No, I am fascinated by the idea I already played against 3 generations of players, Sampras, Agassi, Hewitt, Safin, Roddick, now Nadal, Djokovic…maybe the next one who wants to beat me will be born in the nineties! It’s a great, strange feeling. I’d like to play as long as I can and play against a fourth, fifth generation. This is one of the most fascinating challenges, together with the records to beat: in 2008 I’d like to beat Sampras’ 14 GS titles, win Paris, get the Grand Slam, maybe the Olympic games…these latter come every 4 years…
And will Mirka be always your guardian angel?
She’s the one I want to see when I wake up in the morning. There’s a great feeling between us, she knows how to motivate me without stress, she knows when I need to be alone, she knows how to make my life easy outside tennis, she knows how to protect our time together, she knows that it’s difficult with you journalists…you need to say ‘no’ a lot of times, sometimes I prefer not to talk, not to tell you the same things.
Everyone understands the desire to beat records, but is there anything more Roger Federer would like from himself?
Maybe to play more spectacular tennis, more serve and volley, more aggressively. Maybe I’d win less though. I’d win 3 matches playing extremely well to then lose the following two…It wouldn’t be a great idea.
This week you’ll be playing 3 exhibitions with Sampras, in Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and Macao…what does this mean for you?I’m a bit excited, Pete is the player I admired the most, when he played well and he was in the zone, there was nothing left for anybody else. I saw him in the US after a long time and he was in perfect shape. We played together and he still had the same fluidity, the same class he used to have. We won 26 Slams between us… how will our matches be? I don’t know, he has a big advantage though: he saw me playing many times recently, while I didn’t…as far as the greatest player ever, since I haven’t seen Laver and Rosewall enough, I think he is the one….among the players I played against many times, Agassi and Nadal are the ones I consider the strongest.
You’ve won a lot of tournaments, do you have any regrets?
Not many to tell you the truth…maybe I could have started to win a bit younger, maybe when I was 19 rather than 22, when you used to write I was a discontinuous talent. Maybe I should have worked harder but when I was a kid, you know, I had such a bad temper, I used to break rackets when losing a point or a match…in the end I think I won Wimbledon at the right age, otherwise, who knows, I could have easily lost my mind!
Many have been surprised by your decision to play Estoril next year, do you do that to add one more event on clay with an eye on RG?

With the byes at the first round of MS you end up playing 5 matches instead of 6…and there are only two MS before Paris. If for any reason you lose in the first rounds you run the risk of getting to Paris without having played much on clay…then I also like the idea to play some smaller tournament, in a more relaxed atmosphere, without too much pressure. I know Estoril is a beautiful place, Mirka likes it too…

Questo articolo è stato pubblicato Giovedì, 7 Febbraio 2008 alle 01:37 e classificato in Interviste. Puoi seguire i commenti a questo articolo tramite il feed RSS 2.0. Puoi inviare un commento.